I first met Wilson in the early 1990s as a newly minted lectuerer in Ian White’s group in Bath.  Wilson and Ian were great friends with their Northern Ireland connections and came up with a programme looking at all-optical switching in semiconductors waveguides.  I, and other members of the group, would often make the rather lunatic (often overnight) road trip from Bath and later Bristol up to St Andrews where Wilson was very generous with time on his ultrafast laser systems and pulse measurement equipment.  We had a great time probing the nonlinearites of quantum well waveguides and then latterly worked on the “large project” that Tom Brown mentions which focussed on the use of ultrashort pulses in communications.  

As all others mention, Wilson was always very generous with his advice and mentorship and was never too busy, despite being Head of Department, to talk through the experiments and to have an encouraging coffee with you when things weren’t going quite to plan.  I learned a lot from him on how to treat and encourage people.  He has been an example to many in the field and  I’m sure through them and their students his legacy will live on. 

He was a lovely man – I will miss him.